Hopes for a new year

It is a new year, and it’s definitely my hope that 2013 is far, far better than 2012 has been for each and every one of us. Personally, I had a rough 2012. However, I sit and look at the best part of 2012, my daughter Audrey who was born in March. I see her, my 11 year old son Rob, and my wife with hope for the next year filling me up.

That’s what new years are really all about. It’s a defined point when we can clearly call things “the past” and look hopefully on the future. So, here are a few of my hopes for 2013.

First, as gun control is the topic du jour right now, it’s my hope that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s bill dies a horribe, fiery death. I’m not talking about being gutted in committee to the point that it has no teeth. I mean in a “Nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure” kind of way.

While the Newtown massacre is a horrible, horrible thing and I can only imagine what the families of the slain are feeling, it’s simply a fact that laws would have done little to nothing to actually prevent the tragedy. While some will argue that a new law will help prevent the next tragedy, I’m forced to ask at what point do my right actually matter? The truth is, they always do. Just as everyone else and their rights matter at all times. Let’s hope that the gun control debate ends and, for once, the status quo remains.

Next, let’s go a little closer to home. It’s my fondest hope that new industry comes to Albany. We need jobs, and there will be no economic recovery in Albany until we get new employers. Small business is great, but we would need hundreds of new small businesses to open to make a significant dent in our unemployment rate. What we really need are two or three more employers that can match what we lost with Cooper and Merck’s closings. Obviously, more are better.

Another thing I hope for in 2013 is that people in Albany put aside the melanin content of one’s skin, and start to look at the person within. Far to many in this town will condemn an action simply because one person was white, while another was black. Obviously, these people say, there was racism involved. Unfortunately, they’ve been right more often than not it seems, and the racism goes both ways these days. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and it’s way past time we get over the whole white/black thing and realize we are all part of one race: the human race.

These are just a few things I hope for. I wonder what others hope for, so feel free to let me know if you’d like.

About the author

Tom Knighton is the publisher of The Albany Journal. In November, 2011, he became the first blogger to take over a newspaper anywhere in the world. In August of 2012, he made the difficult decision to take the Journal out of print circulation and become an online news agency, a first for the Albany area.